


A Thread in A House

by stele3



Series: The Tether Series [8]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Autism, Autistic Meltdown, Curtain Fic, F/F, Gen, M/M, Slavery, illness recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 18:14:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19025266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stele3/pseuds/stele3
Summary: “Well,” Silver says, drawing the word out. The fucker is enjoying this. “It was brought to my attention recently by certain parties that almost a year has passed since I came to this humble but well-appointed estate, and I thought that the occasion warranted a, shall we say, a token. To commemorate the event. What I mean to say is, the deed to the house was in the chest, as well.”A moment passes as they all blink at him. “What house?” Thomas asks.Silver casts a quick glance sideways at Marielena, who stiffens. “The white house on the hill?”“One and the same,” Silver confirms with a bit less flair. “The letter I acquired from Julius indicated a house, pale in color, located on the eaves of Society Hill, with an apple orchard on one side and a walnut tree to the south end of the lot. It was underneath the walnut tree that we located the treasure chest. During my convalescence I inventoried the chest—” Flint frowns, wondering when the fuck he’d done that. “—and located a deed to the house among its treasures. It remains in my possession, as I did not see any use that Julius or his people might have of it. We, however, are in desperate need of just such an estate.”





	A Thread in A House

**Author's Note:**

> This installment includes an autistic character having an overstimulated meltdown. The other characters give her space to recover. While I’m on the spectrum I’ve never experienced a meltdown personally; if I depicted it inaccurately please let me know.

~ _September, 1723_

 

Flint does not consider himself to be an overly sentimental man, though whenever he gives voice to that opinion he is met with incredulity by all those around him, and so tends to keep that thought to himself. Certainly, there have been times when passion overtook all reason and washed rational thought from his mind—many times, he can admit. Perhaps too many. And he is, he knows, given to a peculiar strength of feeling, and frequently binds those emotions to people and objects which come to take on their own powerful presence in his life.

All right, so Flint is a sentimental man. Perhaps the most sentimental man in the goddamned fucking world.

He is not, however, given to attaching sentiment to arbitrary social events. The grand balls and soirees of a London season were not open to a carpenter’s son, no matter how well-respected by his superiors, and so Flint had developed a scornful antipathy of the tradition behind celebrating Lord so-and-so’s birthday or Lady such-and-such’s summer garden. They were all just excuses for useless rich snobs to drink and fuck each other and sell off their children into loveless marriage. Thomas, of course, loved birthdays, or he used to, anyway. He seems to have fallen out that sort of thing. Flint briefly imagines why, in the long darkness of Bedlam, Thomas wouldn’t have wanted to note the passing of another year, and then carefully turns his thoughts away to prevent a rise of _sentiment_ in himself.

Nonetheless, one night as he is walking home with Erik and discussing the delivery of a table that they shall undertake in the morning it occurs to Flint that Silver has been with them for almost a year. He broke into their kitchen last October, almost literally a thief in the night, trespassing into Flint’s life as he has done again and again.

That sets him to thinking and quiets the conversation, but Erik does not seem to mind. He is an agreeable lad—and Flint hopes that it is not solely a survival instinct, a way to placate his master. It must not be, for Erik struck his vile fuck of a father in his mother’s defense, without regard for his own safety. Would that he’d had a knife…but then he likely would have wound up hanged. Flint resists the urge to put an arm around Erik as they walk. He tries not to touch Erik overly-much, or treat him as anything other than a fine apprentice. That is what Erik should be, _would_ be if not for the condition of his birth. Flint may not be able to legally name the lad as such, but by God he will give him every scrap of knowledge he can and see all turned over to Erik’s name in his own will if he must.

This line of thinking— _sentiment_ —distracts him until they get home and he discovers Silver practically curled up in Thomas’ lap. Whatever shaky boundaries Silver previously kept about his person, they have been utterly decimated: like a boat settling against a dock, he will cross a room and bump against Flint’s side, then peer out from this safe harbor at the world unfolding around him. More than once Flint has turned to find himself the object of Silver’s silent perusal from where he has burrowed into Thomas’ armpit. It is his lingering watchfulness, Flint decides, the last vestige of hypervigilance that Silver has relied upon for so long to ascertain his own survival, but softened.

Silver looks up when they come in and slides away from Thomas, likely for Erik’s sake. He’s not made any comment about the unconventional arrangements of their house, but Flint senses that Silver doesn’t wish to make Erik uncomfortable with overt displays of affection, especially when Erik is hardly in a position to complain.

Or perhaps Silver is merely shy in the presence of someone not Thomas or Flint. Certainly, he is plenty shy with the both of them, still, averting his eyes from words of affection.

Flint wonders how Silver can stand all of his _sentiment_.

They eat a light meal, all their dwindling money can afford at the moment. It tastes like Silver must have been involved in the kitchen; he always overseasons things, though if pressed on the issue Silver insists that he seasons everything the perfect amount and Flint’s palate is to blame. It’s only once they’ve eaten and Erik has bedded down for the night that Flint broaches the subject on his mind. They have retreated to their bedroom and Thomas is reading Dunne softly, which has been the most exciting thing they’ve done in the bedroom in far too long. Flint is not a young man, and while his love has not faded with the years his desire has somewhat dimmed; and yet he longs for the physical closeness of lovemaking’s aftermath, the press of skin against his own. They sleep in the same bed but do little more than slide hands underneath clothes to caress each other.

Silver’s newfound desire to be plastered against their sides has not helped matters. Even now, he is tucked under Flint’s arm, his head on his shoulder, and his good leg stretched across Thomas’ lap. He barely stirs when Flint says, “It’s been a year since you arrived here.”

Thomas looks up from the book he’s been reading them. Truly, Flint has somewhat lost the plot: it’s a collection of German fables that Thomas has been translating for Mr. Sauer, who has proven a most devoted friend. Despite Thomas’ month-long disappearance, Mr. Sauer took him back instantly and has plied him with stacks of pamphlets and books to translate. German was never Thomas’ greatest strength, but he has muddled through passably well; it isn’t the translation’s fault that Flint is distracted.

“Truly?” Thomas asks. “Well, how swiftly time moves. Shall we do something to mark the occasion, John? John?”

“Hnh,” Silver grunts, either half asleep or pretending to be.

Not to be denied, Thomas pokes him until Silver bats him away with a scowl. “Do you want a token of our affections, to mark the occasion?”

“A girdle that can go ‘round the Earth and a golden apple, but if you can’t manage that then five minutes of sleep will do.”

Thomas huffs but sets the book on the bedside table.

Some foggy hours later Flint wakes to a dark room and a soft murmur. He lies still with his eyes closed, listening; but whatever language Silver is whispering to them while they sleep, it’s not one that Flint knows.

-o-

Rebekah and Marielena return home on a Sunday. Rebekah walks in the front door with her belongings tucked under one arm and her face rigid as a pallbearer’s. She takes two steps into the house and goes slack, dropping to the floor and letting out an ugly yell, then another. Thomas quickly drives the others away from her. Silver suggests they sit outside to take the air and the others accede, taking the chairs just over their threshold and making lively conversation to drown out the intermittent yelling from inside.

Marielena tucks herself close to Flint, transparently grateful to be home. “They were not bad people, but I felt very guilty pretending to say their prayers. I hate to lie.”

On the other side of Flint, Silver gives an inelegant snort. “It’s not much of a lie to playact at prayer, _mi monja_ , people of all faiths do it every day.”

Marielena smiles tightly but does not say anything in response. The friendly ease she had with Silver before is gone, driven away by the murder of Israel fucking Hands. Christ, as if that shitheel deserved such attention; but it is one thing to know that Silver—or Flint—is a pirate with a murderous past and quite another to see the blood spilled firsthand.

Eventually Rebekah’s yells taper off and they remand to the front parlor. She looks exhausted and still shakes her hands occasionally, fingers tugging at the sleeves of her dress or the scarf that now hangs askew on her head; but she sits quietly enough at the table, where Marielena, Thomas, and Flint join her. Silver settles by the fire with Erik. There’s been a chill at night for the first time, but the days are quite warm, so they leave the front door open and let the fire burn low.

The ladies have brought more of the dumpling soup home with them. Thomas adds a few crusts of stale bread and raises his chipped tea mug in toast to their return. It is not often that they manage to be at home in proximity to one another during daylight hours, and despite the crowded conditions Flint can’t help but enjoy the company.

Once they’ve all drunk and refilled their teas—though Flint suspects that Rebekah substitutes whiskey to calm her nerves—and tucked into their soups, Silver speaks up. “So, I have something I need to tell you all, but first you must promise not to do anything rash.”

That, of course, brings the entire room to a standstill. Seated on a stool at the fireplace, Silver waves his spoon about. “No, don’t look at me like that. This is why I didn’t say anything sooner, because you would all immediately assume the worst.”

“Out with it,” Flint growls, his fingers twitching around his own cutlery.

“Well,” Silver says, drawing the word out. The fucker is _enjoying_ this. “It was brought to my attention recently by certain parties that almost a year has passed since I came to this humble but well-appointed estate, and I thought that the occasion warranted a, shall we say, a _token_. To commemorate the event. What I mean to say is, the deed to the house was in the chest, as well.”

A moment passes as they all blink at him. “What house?” Thomas asks.

Silver casts a quick glance sideways at Marielena, who stiffens. “The white house on the hill?”

“One and the same,” Silver confirms with a bit less flair. “The letter I acquired from Julius indicated a house, pale in color, located on the eaves of Society Hill, with an apple orchard on one side and a walnut tree to the south end of the lot. It was underneath the walnut tree that we located the treasure chest. During my convalescence I inventoried the chest—” Flint frowns, wondering when the fuck he’d done that. “—and located a deed to the house among its treasures. It remains in my possession, as I did not see any use that Julius or his people might have of it. We, however, are in desperate need of just such an estate.”

There follows a long discussion on the safety or danger of taking up residence in the aforementioned house, Marielena being against the idea on the grounds that they had murdered and buried a man directly outside the front door and both Flint and Thomas for it on the grounds that they could not remains as they were, packed in on top of one another, and if it truly bothered her that much then Flint would go out in the dead of night, dig Israel fucking Hands up, and toss his rotting corpse in the goddamned bay. Silver abstains from offering opinion, merely sits and watches. If Rebekah has anything to say, she makes no sign to Thomas.

It’s Erik who finds the middle ground: “Perhaps we should all go to view the house? The rest of us have yet to see it for ourselves—it seems only sensible to learn more before we make any determination.”

Flint can’t help but smile, and nods in approval. “A most sensible action. Marielena, you needn’t sit underneath the tree, but I hope you will at least come along to show us— _this_ one,” he adds, gesturing with his fork to Silver, who mimes indignation as if he already knows what Flint is about to say, “could get lost in a hallway. What name is on the deed of the house, anyway?”

“Ben Bridgeman,” Silver answers.

Flint nearly drops his teacup. “Benjamin Bridgeman?”

Silver lifts his eyebrows. “Did you know him? I expect he must have been a pirate of some repute to have amassed such a fortune but I confess that I—what? _What_? Christ, don’t tell me that you know him—you do, don’t you? You’re bitter rivals, I warrant.”

Flint has propped his elbow on the corner of their table and covered his eyes with his hand. “Ben Bridgeman…Long Ben.” Dropping his hand and beholding the blank looks around the room, Flint sighs in exasperation. “ _Long_ fucking _Ben Bridgeman_ was an alias used by _Henry fucking Avery_!”

Silver’s eyes widen. “Oh.” A pause, and then: “Wait, why did they call him ‘Long’? I thought I was Long.”

“I expect Billy borrowed the convention from Avery.”

“Well, then why was Avery named Long?”

“Because he was six fucking feet tall, Silver, will you _focus_. No one has ever known what became of Captain Avery—he simply disappeared from the West Indes one day, never to be seen again. And now you’ve a house with his name on it and a treasure buried out front. Jesus Christ, next you’ll tell me that you had drinks with him at the Green Gentleman.”

“Well,” Silver begins, but then quickly gestures away Flint’s incredulity. “No, no, I’m joking. Do you think it likely that Avery will return to reclaim his fortune, and his manor?”

“Doubt it. The man would be…nearly seventy, if he were still alive. According to most, he’s ten years in the ground.”

“Well, let’s hope we don’t have to dig _him_ up.”

-o-

The house sits just south of Spruce Street, its front door facing Second. It’s close enough to the river to hear the ring of ship bells marking the hour as they idle in port, and to the west they can see all the way down Spruce Street to the far edges of the city, where the sentries guard against the forest fence. The house is rectangular, caught somewhere between the new Georgian style that has swept through Europe and the simpler medieval structures that the Pilgrims and other early settlers continue to build in this new, inhospitable land. Rising from its opposite ends are two large chimneys that give the house a horned appearance. It is constructed of weathered brick, a feat in itself: the city is only beginning to turn its back on wooden construction, as masons have grown more plentiful, but this house looks to have stood here for several decades. Someone dealing in brick that early must have been very determined indeed.

The front door is locked, of course. Flint glances at Silver, who glances at Rebekah, who joins Thomas and Erik in making casual conversation while observing the empty street. Marielena mostly looks pale and faces away from the large walnut tree on the right side of the house.

Throwing his weight against the door, Flint cracks it free.

The interior of the house is silent and covered in a layer of dust. A wide hallway opens on either side into drawing rooms that have been sparsely furnished with tables pushed against the walls and chairs stacked in haphazard clumps, as if the owner had purchased these items, had them delivered, and then left them where they fell. The actual construction of the interior is largely plain, save for the staircase in the main hallway directly before Flint, which sports wooden embellishments along the bannister.

“The ceilings are uncommonly high,” Flint comments when Silver thumps his way into the house behind him. “Perhaps Long Ben Bridgeman did live here.”

Silver casts him a very familiar glance; Flint has been skewered by that same gaze more times than he can count, and yet it strikes him anew how much he loves Silver. “That’s what you’re focusing on, here? Really?”

Flint shrugs and moves deeper into the house along the downstairs hallway. Behind him, the others enter warily and spread outward into various rooms like spilled water. Silver stays close at Flint’s shoulder and it puts Flint in mind of boarding the _Straight Arrow_ : the house has that same echo of abandonment, an island of stillness cut off from the surrounding churn of life. Flint half expects to turn a corner and find some desiccated corpse with a portent of doom at its knee, and he would dearly like the locater of said body to be him instead of the others.

Instead they find: a sun parlor filled with double-paned windows that look out over the orchard, a small porch that has been almost reclaimed by grass, and a sitting room that seems to have been used as a dining alcove. It seems far more pleasant than the cavernous dining room at the front of the building. Outside, the apple orchard is littered with offspring and the tree branches bow low with those fruits that have not yet fallen. A high stone wall that runs along the property to the North, obscuring the rear of the house from view of Spruce Street. On the far side of the orchard, Flint can espy another stone wall dividing this lot from the back of the next house. The South side of the orchard wraps around the house, and Flint makes mental note to visit the grave of Israel Hands, both to ascertain that the disturbed earth will not draw attention and to piss upon it.

They proceed back out into the hallway and are about to climb the stairs when there’s a sudden clatter at the entryway to their right and Marielena bursts in, looking a bit wild-eyed. “John, give me your— _tu muleta_ , give it, hurry!”

“What? Why?” But he hands over the implement, shifting on his one good leg and reaching out to rest a familiar hand on Flint’s shoulder.

Crutch in hand, Marielena dashes back out. There follows some shrieking and loud thumps, which upon investigation is Marielena beating to death several rats in the larder. Because of course Maria had overcome her misgivings and immediately found the kitchen and its stores.

The rats had been feasting on quite a bit of stored grain, most of which is likely unusable; but below the larder is a cellar lined with all the jars that Marielena could ever dream of, and only a few have turned murky with spoiled goods. The rest kept their seal. And there is _wine_.

Flint grabs three of the best bottles—Spanish in origin, of all places—and hands one to Silver, who is idling in the kitchen doorway, having recovered his crutch from Marielena. “Thomas! No, hide that behind your back— _Thomas_ , come in here, would you, there’s a—a book you should see.”

Silver squints at him. So does Thomas, once he enters the room. “In the larder?”

Wordlessly, James presents the two bottles in his hands. Silver catches on and follows suit with a flourish. Thomas presses a hand to his chest. “Mother Mary, we thank you for this day, and all the days that have lead us here in your grace. Oh, please tell me there is a corkscrew.”

The best surprise, however, is earned by Silver, who leaves the two of them drying dusty wine glasses and ventures towards the back of the house on the first floor. When he returns, he makes no attempt to disassemble: “There is a library.”

It’s really a sitting room that has been converted, its walls lined with shelves and a proper reading desk in the middle. There is a cushioned window seat, albeit one covered in dead insects who expired against the glass of the window pane. Only about half the shelves are filled, the sections near the window seat, but when Flint crosses to them he finds Shakespeare, Homer, and Virgil, but also the lais of Marie de France. Whoever collected these tomes did so not simply for the appearance of intellect or to be a dutiful student, but to satisfy their own appreciation of the written word. Here is Milton but here is also _The Faerie Queene,_ bound in a most fanciful cover that Flint takes down from the shelf to admire more closely. The typeset, for once, is fucking legible; it must have been printed with the Garamont punches.

“Perhaps we ought to just set up a cot for him in here,” Silver comments.

Flint lifts his head from the last pages of the book—he only wanted to see if it was the edition which included the allegories of Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy—to find Silver and Thomas both watching him with similar expressions of fond exasperation. Clearing his throat, he closes the book and tucks it under his arm, wrinkling his nose at the dust that is dislodged in the process. “I had never heard tell of Avery being a prodigious reader.”

“Perhaps he built the house for someone else,” Thomas speculates, running a covetous hand over the top of the desk. “A family, or a lover.”

It seems likely. Besides rats, dust, and a few spoiled foodstuffs, the house is in good condition, and clearly built to hold a number of people. Already Rebekah has laid claim to one of the bedrooms upstairs, shaking off sheets and pushing open shutters; Marielena is still downstairs in the larder, of course, rummaging about in her new kingdom and talking to herself in Spanish, but Flint enters another downstairs room to find Erik warily investigating one of the fireplaces.

“Don’t tell me there’s another treasure chest stuffed up there,” Flint says, only half in jest.

“Less of a treasure and more of a hazard.” Erik sits back, wiping his hands on his knees. “I think there’s a nest of some type up this chimney.”

Crouching on the floor next to him, Flint peers upward but sees only darkness. On the edges of his hearing, however, there is a low droning noise. “I think you’re right. We’ll need to see to that quickly—a fast fire in here to drive them upwards.”

“I saw a stack of dried wood in the cellar.”

They make a fire that burns fast and hot. Few wasps venture downwards and are summarily dispatched by Erik’s crutch, and afterwards Flint claps a hand on the lad’s shoulder. “You likely saved us all from an unpleasant surprise later on. Well done.”

“Was nothing, sir. Have you had a look at these chairs, yet? They’re quite fine—I would have liked to meet the carpenter, with no disrespect intended to your work, of course.”

“Leave off, you can say that they’re better.”

“I would never,” Erik declares loyally, but his eyes sparkle. Flint cuffs his shoulder before he joins Erik in drawing up a couple of chairs to watch over their still-burning fireplace. Erik goes so far as to remove his shoe and stretch out his poor clubbed foot on another chair, sighing as he does so.

“I hope you haven’t overtaxed yourself of late,” Flint says. “I know it has been trying, with me gone so frequently.”

“Ah, but you weren’t the only one driven to hermitage of late, sir. It’s been slow at the shop—not many looking to order a new armory in the midst of a plague.”

“ _Armoire_. Armory is for weapons, armoire is for clothes.”

“ _Armoire_. Is it French? It must be, I’ve seen the word and it doesn’t look at all like it sounds.”

“No, it doesn’t, and yes, it’s French.”

“They do enjoy hiding their letters away. Half what they write, they don’t say, and half what they say, they don’t mean.”

Flint laughs softly, stretching his own legs out in front of him and hooking one heel across his ankle. They sit in companionable silence, enjoying the warmth of the fire; the afternoons are still warm but the shade of so many trees has kept this house quite cool even in the midday. He doesn’t even know for sure that they are making claim to this residence—he’ll leave the final decision on that subject to Marielena—but already he is imagining the work that will be needed to winterize the house. So far as he has seen, there are four bedrooms upstairs, one for each corner of the house, though only two have been supplied with a bed. The ladies will of course claim one, and Flint will insist that Erik take the other; Thomas, Flint, and Silver can sleep rough for a few weeks until Flint has the time and supplies needed to make them a proper bed. Their old flea-riddled bed can remain in their bandbox.

Eventually Erik breaks the silence: “I’ve been meaning to speak to you, sir…Master Meijer did catch ill and die.”

Flint casts an eye over the lad; but if Erik feels any remorse over his father’s death, he does not show it. Good, Flint would hate to have to comfort him on this subject. “I hope your mother is well—to whom did his will leave her?”

“None, sir, she…well. She fled.”

“Fled?”

Erik licks his lips and Flint is struck anew by the wretchedness of the situation. He loves Erik like a son, but Erik’s father was his master; there will always be a part of him that hesitates to place his faith in Flint, that wonders if this, finally, is when Flint betrays that trust. Legally, Flint could do whatever he wants to Erik, and Erik would have no recourse. No defenders. It leaves a sour clench in Flint’s belly.

“You needn’t tell me,” he hastens to add.

“No, it’s fine, sir. In Boston, when the masters and mistresses took ill or left the city, many of the servants there simply went away into the woods. Some of the native tribes kill us the same as Christian men, and some take us for slaves, but others give us sanctuary as freemen. Mam went and found one of the good kind, and she wants me to come away into the woods with her.”

“These natives, are they Iroquois?”

“No, sir, I think they’re the Delaware tribe.”

Better. Governor Burnet of the New York province had wrestled a promise from the Iroquois confederacy to return any runaway slaves; God only knew how much the Iroquois would heed that demand, but the Delaware at least had agreed to no such treaty.

Taking a deep breath, Flint steels himself. “Do you wish to go?”

It pains him to never think of never seeing Erik again, never hear his chatter as they work together, never see his eyes shine with pride as he presents a new carving for Flint’s admiration, and yet he recognizes the precariousness of Erik’s position so long as he stays in town. If anything happens to Flint and Thomas, then Erik would be back on the auction block…and even if no calamity befalls them, Erik is still considered their property. Flint can only imagine how that might grate on one’s soul, day in and day out.

Erik’s clever hands turn over in his lap. “It’s hard living out there, sir, I don’t mind saying. Mam says she’ll see to me, but with my leg…I don’t want to make things harder for her. Those tribes that take in slaves do so at great risk to their trade with the British, so most take tribute in exchange for protection. I fear I’d do more harm than good in a place like that.”

Flint turns over these words, biting back the urge to insist that Erik’s value had naught to do with his labor. A Delaware chieftain placing his own people at risk to help runaway slaves might not share that opinion and from years of sailing, fighting, and living with Silver, Flint knew well how easy it was for fools to see only the crutch and think the man wielding it must be useless on a ship, in a fight, and at living.

He says, “I once knew a man—had dealings with him, sailed with him, thought I knew him well. Until one day I came to find out that I knew him not at all. He was slave to a business associate of mine, but he was a king in his own right: king of the Maroons, a group of escaped slaves who claimed a small island for themselves and their freeborn children.”

Erik’s eyes brighten with interest, an expression that Flint has seen a thousand times on faces much older than Erik’s. The hunger for a good story is universal. “Like the man who came for the treasure chest?”

“Like him. This king had a wife and grown daughter who he kept hidden in a secret encampment on their island. He remained in Nassau where he fulfilled a vital purpose: the redirection of certain supplies necessary for the survival of the Maroon encampment which they could not grow nor forage on the island itself, and the only avenue of escape for another thousand souls who otherwise would have been sold into bondage in the colonies.”

He pauses there, not wishing to overly influence Erik’s thoughts. It is a perilous proposition: certainly Flint would lend help, and Silver, and perhaps they might risk an entreaty to Mr. Sauer, but Erik would still bear the most risk. Flint feels a stirring in his own chest. It is not the grand revolution that he imagined, but it is still a way to resist the tyranny of England, of civilization. When first he was reunited with Thomas he thought of nothing but spiriting his resurrected lover as far away as he could from anyone who might harm him. That overwhelming desire for safety, security, drove him to complacency—and God damn Charles Vane in his grave, wherever that may be. The man was an ignorant savage but he was right about that much: there were so many little sacrifices of freedom, principle, and self-respect that Flint had made in the months and years following his reunion with Thomas. So many ways that the fire of defiance was dampened—only, now, reignited.

From the brightness in Erik’s eyes he feels the same spark. But when he opens his mouth, what comes out is: “Did you sell any slaves, sir?”

Flint blinks. He hadn’t—but, well, of course he should have expected that question. He opened this door to his past; it would be a betrayal of Erik’s trust to close it now. “Yes,” he says. “I did—and owned them as well.”

Explanations and justifications crowd in his throat, but Flint does not give them voice, as Erik did not ask for them. The lad says nothing for a moment, first studying Flint’s expression and then the room around them, but very obviously seeing neither. When at last he speaks again, he asks with the voice of someone whose decision has already been made, “How did this secret king in Nassau go about doing the work for his people?”

Flint answers as best he can. He only learned of Mr. Scott’s activities in the past tense as the man himself lay sweating on a bed in the Maroon camp, so any information he possesses is based on surmisal and guesses; yet Flint finds it very easy to imagine how Mr. Scott would have gone about both ferrying escaped slaves to the Maroon island and hunting down supplies. For years he pirated the pirates, stole out from under their very noses, and the thing that helped him best was his invisibility. People had seen him as an extension of the Guthries—Flint included—and yet all along he’d been someone else entirely.

Once their conversation draws to a close, Flint takes a turn about the orchard. He feels raw, stripped of a few skin layers, and filled with a strange weakness, as of an invalid taking the first steps from his sickbed and trembling with fear at the thought of slipping backwards into death. Erik had not condemned him as a monster, as did Peter Ashe and his magistrates, or Hennessey and the rest of the sealords; no, this reprobation is strictly internal.

The sound of a door slamming draws Flint’s attention back to the house. Silver has emerged and flings himself down on the edge of the porch.

Frowning, Flint redirects his wayward feet back through the terrain covered by fallen apples, thick grass, and a few tangles of wild blackberries. Crossing the yard is no swift task; they will need a scythe to clear it. By the time he reaches the back porch, Silver has established the air of a proper brood, with one knee drawn up and a blank glower directed at the tall grass in front of him.

“You’re out of sorts,” Flint observes.

“So are you,” Silver snaps back, shifting about and thumping his crutch needlessly on the lower step as though he can stomp out whatever has so upset him.

Flint sighs. “Erik is contemplating a treacherous endeavor, a path on which I must confess I placed him. His mother and several other slaves have gone away to live with the Delaware and Erik means to provide them with aid and supplies.”

As he speaks, Silver’s expression runs the gamut of emotions, fear being most prevalent. “Christ,” he exclaims, “you told him about Madi’s father, didn’t you?”

“I did. He likely would have formed a similar course of action on his own, and this way at least he knows that he can come to me for help, and to you. You knew the inner workings of the Maroon camp better than I, you could provide invaluable advice.”

“Christ,” Silver exclaims again, but he is laughing and shaking his head this time. “You can never leave well enough alone, can you?”

“He came to me.”

“Yes, and you sent him straight on the path of a true revolutionary. That’s not what has upset you, though, is it?”

Sometimes Flint misses the days when Hal Gates, a connoisseur of willful blindness, was his closest bosom companion. He feels far too _known_ in this moment, and has to grind his teeth a moment before he answers. “He asked me if I ever had business with slavers, and though he did not meet my answer with judgment, I _feel_ it all the same. In this I am my own prosecutor.”

Silver offers no words of comfort, merely grunts in understanding and gazes out over the orchard. After a few moments Flint moves to sit next to him and looks steadily at the side of Silver’s head until Silver returns his attention. “What?” Silver demands.

“You?” Flint asks.

At first it seems as though Silver will dissemble and feign ignorance; but he can’t seem to quite manage it, and after a moment he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “As I look at this house I see all of the hidey-holes where every one of you will tuck your most valuable possessions. Marielena has a private stash of coin that she hides from the rest of us. It’s at least ten pounds by now. She kept it upstairs in their wardrobe, but I expect she will hide it in the pantry now. If I took it and ran, I could get as far as…the New York province? I’ve certainly no desire to head South.

“Rebekah loves Marielena more than life, far more than the rest of us. In a choice between Maria and you or Maria and Thomas, she would not hesitate, and neither would you if Thomas were similarly threatened. If I so desired to truly break our strange company in half, I would find a way to set Thomas and Marielena at odds with one another, likely by encouraging Thomas’ more extravagant habits and then pilfering Marielena’s hidden coins. It would be so easy, even flush with our new prize; perhaps even more now, for Thomas will see this fine house and want to fill it with _things_ , with frippery that offends Marielena’s more frugal instincts.

“I’ve told you directly that you shouldn’t trust me, and yet you do. I know about the small gems you have tucked away, the knife you keep under your pillow, and every seam you have stitched in this patchwork life. I know exactly where a tug would unravel it all. And I cannot fucking _stop_ looking for that thread in _any fucking situation_ , Jesus fucking Christ.”

He thumps his crutch again. The sound takes Flint back to that moment in the rowboat, surrounded by sharks, when Silver had struck the bottom of the boat in grim frustration—or perhaps not, perhaps he’d hoped to draw attention to their small craft. Flint realizes he’s never asked. Every time he recalls that most desperate hour, his mind is drawn inexorably to that which came before: Silver’s confession, his challenge, his desperate gambit to force Flint to live simply by standing in his way and saying, _I am here. Where are you?_

It was another thread, but instead of unraveling Flint, it had dragged him up from the water into which he had plunged after Miranda.

Taking a seat beside Silver, Flint strokes his beard twice then speaks in a low voice. “I asked you once about your past. At the time, I was—well, I was as gone for you as a lovelorn shepherd. I coveted all parts of you. I could not understand, when I was so defined by my past, why you were so adamant about leaving yours behind…but I do, now. If I could cut from myself the darkest moments of Captain Flint’s legacy, excise the very memories and cast them aside, then nothing, not Thomas’ compassion nor your cunning, could stop the fall of that knife.

“But I can’t. The men and women and children who I’ve put into the ground await me there. Wherever I go, the past comes with me…as it comes with you.”

Silver does not meet his eyes but continues to gaze blindly into the orchard. Flint does his best not to wonder what he sees there. Instead he asks, “Have you ever found a way to leave off the thread?”

Silver’s jaw works. “A few times,” he finally says. “With Madi. She…saw me searching for it, saw me struggling not to. The shame, when I could not prevent myself from doing so. She bade me lay down my shame, and for a brief time I actually could.”

Reverence seeps into his voice. Something about loving a woman can bring out such awe in a man—though perhaps they do women no favors by loving them in such a way. “Something tells me that such a command from me would not achieve the same result.”

“I don’t know. I’ve no idea how she managed to work such magic on me in the first place. She—God. You came first but she saw me clearer. Not…enough. In the end she still perceived in me that what she wanted to see most. A no-good pirate king. But there were times when she…Christ.” He laughs, rubbing a hand over his face as though to wipe away his foul mood. “How the Hell ever did I come by the two of you?”

This time Flint hears the reverence that is meant for him, and cannot help but respond. Silver startles a little at the first touch but turns into Flint’s hands rather than pulling away. His lips are warm and dry against Flint’s; that alone is its own miracle, and Flint’s belly clenches tight to think of the long weeks of illness behind them.

It is but a chaste kiss, though lingering, and once they part Flint tips their foreheads together. His hands cup Silver’s cheeks, still bristly with new beard and marked by new scars. “I love you so,” he murmurs.

“You’ll regret it one day,” Silver answers too quickly.

“I already have, several times over.” Flint sits back, though he keeps a hand on Silver’s back and after a moment is rewarded by the press of Silver’s shoulder and a sigh against the side of his neck as Silver curls into him. A boat settling into harbor. “Now, tell me how we are going to persuade Erik to take the second bed upstairs.”

“Easy. We move it downstairs so that he doesn’t have to brave the climb, and don’t tell him that there’s only two. He can take the sun parlor as his bedroom.”

“Something tells me he will notice me building a bedframe in my shop.”

“Tell him it’s for me. Mayhaps I grew weary of your snoring and Thomas’ cold toes.”

“I think he would rather stab himself in the eye than hear anything about our nightly arrangements.”

Silver barks with laughter, shaking them both. Behind them, the narrow door to the house opens. “The two of you, come inside and help me drink this wine.”

Craning his head back, Silver squints up at Thomas. “Are you drunk already?”

“I,” Thomas says, “have spent the last…eighteen years in Bedlam, bondage, or poverty. I feel _no_ shame in saying that yes, I am very drunk on a glass of wine. Would you rum-hardened pirates deign to join us in the dining room for a toast to our new home? I fear that if Captain Avery ever does return to this place, he will have to fight Marielena for it, and I personally do not like his chances.”

They do toast, all six of them, though there are only three wine glasses. Flint and Silver, being rum-hardened pirates, drink straight from the two bottles Thomas opened for the occasion, and Erik drinks from a saucer. Thomas, who went to seminary as the second son of an earl and thus can quote Scripture while blind drunk—and has—says, “‘By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures.’ Come, my friends, let us fill this home with treasures.”

They make love that night, the three of them, in a nest of blankets on the upstairs floor. Contrary to his previous reluctance, Silver seeks to draw them both over him at every available moment, dragging their shoulders down as though to construct himself a bower of their collarbones. Flint has him for the first time there on the floor, breathless with desire and aching with care, searching his face in the moonlight for any trace of averseness, only giving himself over fully once he finds nothing in Silver’s gaze but desire of him. He buries his face in Silver’s shoulder and thinks that he can hear the beat of his heart like wings, the gasp of his breath like feathers in a breeze as they move together. Only Thomas’ deft hand separates them, but it is no separation, nor are his lips on Silver’s an intrusion. They are one and the same, one body giving pleasure and another receiving and a third to act as tether, easing them together, as holy as any trinity of God.

Flint falls asleep with Thomas’ chest under his ear and wakes to the sound of Silver gasping in panic and Thomas murmuring to him. They shift and resettle with Silver held between them and Thomas’ long arm slung over his hip to rest on Flint’s waist.

The dark of early morning glints on Silver’s open eyes as they move over Flint’s face. Flint tucks his arm under his head and looks back until the nightmare loosens its hold and Silver closes his eyes again. Only then does Flint rest his hand on Thomas’ arm and let himself sleep, as well.

 

 

 

 

Notes:

 

-There’s not much evidence to support the idea that Henry Avery (or Every) escaped to settle in Philadelphia, but many of his crew did; one even married the governor’s daughter! I liked the idea of it, though, and the mystery surrounding Avery’s disappearance provides enough ambiguity to tie the treasure to him for the sake of a good story. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Every#Fate>

-The naming convention of ‘Long X’ was indeed an indicator of someone’s height. I presume that the writers of _Black Sails_ looked at Luke Arnold, all of 5’7” if he’s a goddamned inch, and decided to come up with a different reason for the name.

-Houses in the early 18th century colonies were pretty rustic: early European settlers did not keep pace with the architectural styles of the Old Country and instead looked medieval by comparison. The Avery House, as I am mentally calling it, is a slightly more metropolitan build and thus has a lot of Georgian influences, including the characteristically symmetrical windows. <https://www.antiquehomesmagazine.com/historic-style-guide/early-american-colonial/>

- _The Faerie Queene_ <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Faerie_Queene>

-Garamont (or Garamond) is a typeset invented by Claude Garamond. When he passed away, his widow was forced to sell the punches for his typeset in order to support herself; it became one of the most popular typesets used in books for the next 200 years. <https://www.prepressure.com/printing/history/1500-1599>

-I fudged the date of the treaty between Governor Burnet and the Iroquois confederacy regarding escaped enslaved people: the agreement was reached in 1726, not 1723. The Iroquois did wind up ignoring the treaty. Native American tribes were frequently safe havens for runaways escaping slavery, though some tribes did enslave them, too. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Indians_in_the_United_States#Colonial_America>

-The Biblical passage that Thomas quotes is Proverbs 24, Saying 21.


End file.
